Sweet Girls in the Summer: An Evolving Girly Chinese Fashion Fad

Fashion Trends, Miscellaneous, Simon, Trends and Insights — By Simon on July 8, 2010 at 4:32 pm

Simon will be taking a bi-weekly delve into on-going trends relating to Chinese youth and placing them into context with their Pan-asian brethrens. This week’s post investigates in China’s emerging summer fad: ‘sweet girls’ in straw hats!



Summer is here and Shanghai is boiling. Pant legs are rolled back up, big sunglasses are exchanged for lensless frames, and for the oldies, the sunbrella makes its welcome return. In a fashion conscious city such as this the seasonal wardrobe change can be very telling of new lifestyle trends.

So what trends are we seeing this summer? One item you are guaranteed to see young Chinese girls adding to their summer accessories is the straw hat. Their ubiquity has been on a slow rise since last summer, where we tracked a few trendiers types already incorporating the piece into the summer outfits and after recent trip to Hangzhou music festival, take my word that this is a must have for eighties/nineties girls this summer.





The straw hat itself is an accessory most readily identified with the 甜美 or ‘sweet girl’ style. Other important components in this style are pale, flowy tops or skirts with floral prints and flowery accessories. While this trend is not particularly ‘standoutish’ or unique it has moved from a hardcore contingent of those who followed Tokyo street style and been appropriated for a more mass and uniquely Chinese style. We see the 90’s generation mixing and matching with other popular accessories of the time, thick rimmed frames, canvas shoes, etc.

From a wider Asian perspective, being that this style is all about emphasizing the softness of being a girl, it’s a well endorsed look throughout Japan, Korea and Taiwan. While its roots lie in Japan, nowadays it’s fragmented into a more distinct style of ‘doll-kei’ and more recently the ‘mori-girl’ or forest girl styles. Of course we know that the Japanese invented ‘kawaii’ but there has definitely been some innovation around Asian in past couple of decades.

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    3 Comments

  • Bob Liu says:
    July 8, 2010 at 11:46 pm

    Hi Simon, very interesting post and I also appreciate the analysis about why this is happening towards the end. I am curious about how this trend plays out regionally. You mention this is something you are seeing in Shanghai but what about in other markets or tiers throughout China?

  • Simon says:
    July 9, 2010 at 3:23 pm

    Hey Bob,

    Thanks for commenting!

    I think you’d have to ask our roving youth research Nick(twitter.com/MrBaronBurns – stay tuned for a blog coming soon) to find a more detailed answer about youth fashion in lower tier China but I’m confident that you will definitely see versions of this permeating most cities.

    Actually one of the first people to really bring this style to my attention in China was a girl called Nancy Z based in Tianjin, you can see more of her in an article we wrote last year:http://blog.enovatechina.com/from-the-streets-to-the-internet/

    Overall the look, and lifestyle isn’t an unusual sub-cultural phenomenon,it keys in with some pretty Chinese feminine traits so I can see it appealing on a wide scale. Add to this the look isn’t necessarily hinged on brand names or expensive items of clothing, which makes this a highly accessible trend.

  • Bob Liu says:
    July 9, 2010 at 3:52 pm

    Thanks Simon, I will check out Nick’s post. Hope it is up soon!